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FIRE SERVICE IN GREAT CITIES 


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F IRE Service in Great G 1TIES 


WRITTEN BY JULIAN RALPH 

)) 

ILLUSTRATED BY C. J. TAYLOR 



DESCRIPTIONS AND SKETCHES OF THE 

New York, Boston, and Philadelphia 
Fire Departments 







v 








Copyright, 1886, by 

THE SILSBY MANUFACTURING COMPANY, 
Seneca Falls, N. Y. 


PRE88 OF FLEMING, BREWSTER & ALLEY 
*1-33 W. TWENTY-THIRD ST , NEW YORK 




FIGHTING FIRE IN NEW YORK. 


NCE a German friend described to us the man¬ 
ner of fighting fire that used to obtain in his 
native place, a village in Hanover, not very- 
many years ago. The engine was housed at 
one end of the straggling settlement, he said, 
and some important functionary kept the key. 
The firemen were the public-spirited citizens 
of the place. The last fire our friend went 
to there broke out in a house two miles from the engine house. 
The alarm was sounded throughout the village, and, with philosophi¬ 
cal calmness, the firemen finished their dinners, if they were at home, 
or closed up their affairs, if at work, and repaired in a leisurely way to 
the fire house. When all had arrived, a meeting was held, and it was 
resolved to send for the key. The functionary who had charge of it 
kept it in his pocket. He was not at home, and his good wife did not 
know where he had gone. Word came in time that he had strolled up 
to see the fire, and when the messenger from the fire house reached 
him he seemed pained at his own absence of mind in not having once 
thought of the likelihood that he and the key would be wanted. He 
was very corpulent, and it was a long, uphill walk to the engine house; 
but he went at once, not stopping on the way for more than two min¬ 
utes at a time with those who interrupted him with questions as to 
the nature and location of the fire. Even at his own house, when he 
came to it, he did not tarry more than & minute or two. 

In time the Company got under headway, and went bowling along 
to the scene of destruction. It happened, on this unique occasion, that 
the flames had not dallied or loitered at all, but, with what might be 
considered absolute indifference to the situation, had devoured the 
doomed building. 

“ It vos, berhaps, choost as veil, anyhow,” my friend explained ; “ for 
it habbened dot der veil from vich ve should der vorter get vos on der 





6 


FIRE SERVICE IN GREAT CITIES. 


insite uf der house, so ve should haf peen opliged to carry so much vot 
vos vonted a halluf a mile from der bottom of a hill up, already. So 
efferyding durned owd for der pest.” 

Quaint as all this sounds, even our own extraordinarily proficient 
fire service in New York has arisen from a beginning as imperfect 
and unorganized as that of the village referred to, and such was the 
condition of affairs, we suspect, long after New York had grown to be 
a larger place than that village was at the time of this disastrous fire. 
New York’s first engine came from England in 1730, and was a most 
remarkable institution—a portable tank with cranks at the side, such 
as organ-grinders are accustomed to, for working the pumps. And it 
had a fixed, immovable, and very short spout, which needed to be poked 
into, or very close to, the flames, in order to be of any use. In 1736, 
Anthony Lamb being then the “ Superintendent of Fire Engines,” at 
$60 a year, the first engine house was built and a better pattern of 
engine had appeared, its pumps being worked by great levers some¬ 
what like those that continued in use until steam shouldered the hand 
engine into obscurity. 

THE OLD VOLUNTEER SYSTEM. 

Thus was formed the nucleus of the admirable Fire Department of 
to-day. For one hundred and thirty-five years, or until long after the 
place had become one of the great cities of the world, the volunteer 
system was the dependence of the people. And it is only admitting 
the truth to add that the volunteer department here and in Boston and 
Philadelphia, grew into very great and complete systems, deserving of 
the popularity they long enjoyed, and of the gratitude to which their 
survivors have not yet lost their title. Populations grew, conditions 
changed, and it became necessary, in the new order of things, for the 
establishment of forces whose members should devote their entire time 
to the warfare against flame under salaries paid by the people. But 
the couplet was as true of the old volunteers as it is of the salaried 
men of to-day, that 

When all have fled, when all but he would fly, 

The fireman comes to rescue or to die. 

Steam took the place of hand apparatus as naturally as the locomo¬ 
tive supplanted the stage coach, and for much the same reasons. The 


FIGHTING FIRE IN NEW YORK . 


7 


country was growing and public service of all soj?ts had to keep pace 
with population wherever it was densest. In New York city fires 
gradually became so numerous and such great and valuable establish¬ 
ments were endangered, and sometimes attacked by it, that it gradually 
became more and more evident that it was unsafe to depend upon 
hand pumps, especially since the manufacturers of fire apparatus, fore¬ 
seeing the changed conditions, had already devised steamers to take 
the places of the clumsy and inefficient wooden machines. 

Fortunately, although the substitution of steam for hand engines 
began to take place about thirty years ago, it is possible to get testi¬ 
mony to-day from many firemen who worked the old hand-brakes in 
the old regime, and who are able to explain exactly in what way and 
through what process of experience the mighty revolution took place 
in New York. Mr. Thomas Ryan, of 241 Third avenue, who was 
secretary of Lexington No. 7, in the old volunteer department, was 
then so young that to-day finds him in his prime and able to speak 
clearly of the old as well as intelligently of the new order of things. 
As a mere lad he had run with the tender of a hand-engine company 
until sufficient years were added to his boyhood to entitle him to full 
membership of the crack company that ran with famous “ old Seven." 
His descriptions of the gorgeous parades, the hot races, the bitter 
feuds, and the generally picturesque surroundings of the volunteer 
service, have the merit of proving entertaining not only to firemen and 
New Yorkers, but to any one who admires heroism, adventure, and en¬ 
thusiastic, manly endeavor. There is neither reason nor room for repro¬ 
ducing any of these lively recitals here, except the one which illus¬ 
trates the manner in which the revolution in favor of steam was 
accomplished. 

“Along about i860," says Mr. Ryan, “there was a fire in Elm 
street, near Grand, in a big and crowded tenement. It was on an 
intensely cold night in midwinter. We fought the flames bravely, 
but the fire was too great for us to manage, and five persons, who had 
been driven to the roof, were burned to death. When we got back to 
the engine house the bell sounded for a fire at Thirty-sixth street and 
Lexington avenue, in a brown-stone block of tall dwellings. We had 
done superhuman work down town, but we saw that even more was 
now demanded of us than the first fire had called for. Again, as had 


8 


FIRE SERVICE IN GREAT CITIES. 


been the case in Elm street, we were first at the scene and got the 
hydrant closest to the fire. There we remained until nine o'clock the 
next morning. The weather continued inhumanly cold, and as the 
water splashed and dripped from the couplings and pumps, it froze 
upon the ground, and the ice kept piling up until the machine was 
frozen up in a solid mass reaching to her hubs. When the fire was 
extinguished the men were obliged to chop the machine clear of her 
icy fastenings. 



LEXINGTON SEVEN’S HAND ENGINE. 


“ When we got back to the house we had been almost steadily at 
work thirteen hours, from eight o’clock in the evening until nine 
o’clock the following morning. Two steam engines had already been 
introduced in the department, and their appearance and work had 
attracted much favorable comment. ‘Boys,’ I said ; ‘this is a little too 
much. Hand engines are played out. We’ve had enough of muscle ; 
let’s change it for steam.’ ” 

The time was opportune ; the temper of the company was ripe for 
the change. Fighting fire in the metropolis had become too constant 
and exacting an occupation for even these stalwart men ; and at a 
meeting called very soon after the suggestion was made, the company 
voted for the purchase of a steamer. There were only two steam fire 
engines in the city at the time. Company No. 8 had one and so 
did Forty-six Hose Company, which developed into an engine company 






FIGHTING FIRE IN NEW YORK. 


9 


in consequence. Seven’s company examined the machines then being 
manufactured, and determined to purchase one of those made by 
the Silsby Company, at Seneca Falls, N. Y. The bargain was quickly 
made, and old Lexington Seven, which had theretofore been one of 
the crack companies of the department, stepped to the first place in 
the service, and never was obliged to relinquish its leadership during 
the continuance of the then existing order of affairs. Company No. 6 
(the noted “Big Six,” which William M. Tweed commanded) after¬ 
ward bought an engine — also a Silsby, and the exact duplicate of 
“Seven’s” machine, but not until the Lexington Company had long 
been the cynosure of all eyes by reason of their splendor in parades 
and their unexampled efficiency at fires. 

In the volunteer system, or rather in the absence of system and 
discipline then prevailing, the character of a company was dependent 
on the grade of citizens from which its membership was made up, and 
it was in this respect that Lexington Seven, if not superior to all the 
others, was at least unexcelled by any other organization. There were 
fighting companies and “ dandy ” companies and political companies 
and racing companies, and Old Seven shared the excellences of all 
in each of these lines except that of fighting. Her men were not 
brawlers. If they were attacked, they were always able and ready to 
defend themselves, but it was their rule to avoid fights if possible ; and 
so well established was their fame for orderliness and good work that 
it was said they were obliged to be very cautious about preferring 
complaints against other fire organizations that offended them, be¬ 
cause, whenever they lodged a complaint with the commissioners, the 
offending company was almost certain to be summarily disbanded. 
We can see in the material of which the company was made up why this 
should have been the case. One of the members, and at one time the 
foreman, was Mr. Kelly, now President of the Fifth National Bank; 
another member was Mr. Munson, to-day head of one of the largesjt pie¬ 
baking establishments in the world; an assistant foreman was Launcelot 
W. Armstrong, the well-known builder; another was Col. John W. 
Marshall, now in the Tax Office ; another was W. W. Rhodes, who be¬ 
came an assistant engineer of the paid department; another was Edward 
Stephenson, now a Commissioner of Emigration, and yet another was 
Mr. Joseph L. Potter, the prominent builder. Mr. Ryan, who still 


IO 


FIRE SERVICE IN GREAT CITIES. 


holds the books of the famous company, was assistant secretary in 
1861-2, and secretary in 1863-4-5. 

The Silsby steamer purchased by the company made a lasting sen¬ 
sation.: The picture of her represents a slender and more simple bit of 
machinery than the improved and perfected engines now manufactured 
by this great firm of fire-engine makers, who have built nearly one-half 



A FAMOUS OLD ENGINE. 

the total number of fire engines now in use in the United States and 
Canada. But “ Seven’s ” engine was light and graceful, and shone like 
a mammoth piece of jewelry. She was taken to New York in October, 
i860, by James P. Teller^ who acted as her engineer and continued in 
charge of her until August 15, 1866, the company being one of the last 
that was disbanded after the organization of the paid department in 
the preceding year. 

She was first seen by the general public on October 13, i860, in the 
procession in honor of the visit of the Prince of Wales. She was as 
resplendent as a jewel, and the rope by which she was dragged was 
manned by one hundred laddies, all famous for their stalwart propor¬ 
tions, and appareled in the full regalia of red shirts, showy fire hats, 
black scarfs, black trousers and patent leather shoes. The company 







FIGHTING FIRE IN NEW YORK . 


i 


took up Broadway from curb to curb, and envy made many enemies 
for it among the firemen who were outshone, and those others whose 
conscientious scruples against honoring anything British prevented 
them from taking part in the procession. From that day onward, for 
nearly half a dozen years, this famous engine continually attracted 
public attention and admiration. 

In all probability the greatest feat she ever performed was at the 
celebrated fire at the Empire Works, at Twenty-fifth street and East 
River, where she worked steadily for eighteen consecutive hours. This 
performance was unparalleled, and the persons upon whom fell the 
loss occasioned by the fire offered a purse of $1,000 to the company. 
The men had all the money they needed, however, and declined the 
gift. The grateful manufacturers then made a present to the company 
of an extraordinarily handsome bookcase, which was put ; n the read¬ 
ing-room of the company’s house in East Twenty-fifth street, between 
Second and Third avenues, already the finest fire quarters in the city— 
at least, as far as the completeness and elegance of all its appointments 
were concerned. Twenty men bunked in the house each night, and 
imagined themselves living like princes. In the basement of the house 
were the dining-room and kitchen, on the ground-floor was the pretty 
Silsby steamer and her tender, above-stairs were the parlor and reading- 
room, and another flight of stairs led to the bunk room. 

In the daytime, as was the rule in the volunteer service, the firemen 
attended to the making of their livelihood as artisans, clerks or shop¬ 
keepers in the neighborhood, quitting everything at the sound of the 
fire-bell almost as quickly as the Yankee contractor on one section of 
the Hoosac Tunnel used to complain that his laborers left off work 
when they heard the twelve o’clock whistle: “ So quickly,” he said, 
“that those who had their picks up, ready to strike a blow, would 
leave them in the air rather than wait to bring them down.” 

“ Other steamers used to break down, frequently, after two or three 
hours of work,” Mr. Ryan, the ex-secretary, says, “but the Silsby that 
we had all those years would tackle any amount of work, and after 
getting through with it would be landed in the engine house all right 
and tight, and ready to go out again on the next alarm. There was no 
better engine in the department, and I don’t think that, with all the 
modern improvements that have been made in fire engines, there 


12 


FIRE SERVICE IN GREAT CITIES. 


is a steamer to-day that can beat the work she used to do. When 
anything was the matter with the Croton aqueduct, or the street mains 
(which happened now and then), we used to go down to the dock 
and suck water to supply the other engines. She was a 1 hummer, 
and there was no better engineer than Jim Teller in the department, 
either. He knew how to handle her every time.” 

This comment is peculiarly interesting because both the old 

steamer and her skillful en¬ 
gineer are still vigorous and 
useful despite the flight of 
time. Mr. James P. Teller 
is a delivering engineer of the 
Silsby Company, and in all 
likelihood is known to more 
firemen in this country and 
Canada than any other per¬ 
son. He accompanies to its 
destination nearly every en¬ 
gine that is purchased, and 
not only tries it to make sure 
of its perfect condition, but 
cheerfully and explicitly ac¬ 
quaints its new owners with 
all that is necessary for them 
to understand in order to 
manage its simple machinery 
when in operation. He is a 
veteran fireman, with a his¬ 
tory for any fire-fighter to be 
proud of, and in his dealings with firemen there instantly springs into 
existence a feeling of mutual interest and sympathy; yet he is a shrewd 
business man as well, and acquits himself creditably in his dealings with 
whomsoever he is obliged to meet. His old pet and favorite, Number 
Seven, is still in use, guarding the mill of Messrs. Manuel, Hay & Co., 
at Hayville, Pa. It is more than twenty-six years since she was delivered, 
new, to old Seven’s boys, and we have seen, or will have seen when 
this sketch is completed, the nature of the work she had to perform in 



ENGINEER TELLER. 




FIGHTING FIRE IN NEW YORK . 


3 


New York ; yet to-day she is still in service and capable of combating 
her arch-enemy. If there is any other engine of that age that has kept 
out of the scrap-heap it is not within our knowledge, but if proven 
would be a fact calculated to make her builders very proud. 

Among the notable conflagrations at which this Silsby engine per¬ 
formed work that helped to make her famous was that historic one in 
which the Academy of Music at Fourteenth street and Irving place 
was all but destroyed. Seven got the “plug” a block away, at the 
corner of Fourteenth street and Third avenue. The fire worked its 
way along, through the buildings on whose site Tammany Hall now 
stands, and reaching the corner of Third avenue, drove every one 
away from the engine. The nearest point at which it was possible for 
any one to stand was 150 or 200 feet from the machine, which, by the 
way, continued her work as valiantly as when Engineer Teller stood 
behind her. He had stood his ground at least ten minutes after all 
the others were driven away, but, at last, he also abandoned her. 
After a time a wall fell partly upon her, and the suction pipe was 
burned off. Some daring fellows ran up, hitched a rope to a hind 
wheel of the machine and tried to drag her away, but it was an unsuc¬ 
cessful attempt. Finally, Mr. Teller managed to attach a rope to the 
end of the tongue, and old Seven was drawn out of the red cloud of 
flame in which she had been standing, and dragged, still at work, 
around the corner into Fifteenth street, where another suction tube 
was attached, and she continued under full headway until the fire was 
subdued. 

“ The old girl,” as Seven’s men affectionately called her, had the 
good but trying fortune to identify herself conspicuously with the very 
beginning of the famous “draft riots” of 1863, during which the 
Metropolis lay almost helpless at the mercy of as desperate a mob as 
ever defied the authorities there or elsewhere. It was on July 13 that 
the rioting began, as will be remembered, with an attack on the Fed¬ 
eral Provost Marshal’s office at Forty-fifth street and Third avenue, in 
a building that stands there to-day. This house was fired, and old 
Seven was promptly at the scene and industrious in saving the build¬ 
ing. Thence the rioters went to Foity-fourth street and Madison 
avenue and attacked and fired Allerton s Bull’s Head Hotel, followed, 
of course, by Old Seven and her men, who failed to save the structure. 


14 


FIRE SERVICE IN GREAT CITIES . 


Then came the famous and inhuman firing of the Colored Orphan Asy¬ 
lum on Fifth avenue, and here with noble energy and better success 
this historic steamer and her owners battled with the flames. The 
armory at Twenty-second street and Second avenue completed the 
shocking list of that day’s casualties under mob law, and of that com¬ 
pany’s untiring responses to the calls of duty. Secretary Thomas 
Ryan was in command that day, having been the first to appear for 
duty and not being afterward relieved by the foreman. Valiant Chief 
John Decker was in command of the department and at the four fires, 
and so was his competent aide, Assistant Engineer Perley. 

If the company earned a place in history that day, how much more 
lasting must be her fame for what followed in the record of her com¬ 
pany ? The city was in the hands of the rioters, the police were unable 
to cope with the disorder, and the militia regiments were participating 
in the War of the Rebellion. On the night of the first day of the riot¬ 
ing, Mr. Ryan conceived the idea of forming a home guard, or patrol 
corps, to guard the Third avenue within the upper and lower bounda¬ 
ries of the Eighteenth Police Precinct, that is to say, from Fourteenth 
to Twenty-seventh streets. Butcher stores were being raided, clothing 
stores gutted, and drinking saloons mobbed, the people being terror- 
stricken and helpless. Mr. Ryan, in furtherance of his plan, went to a 
Mr. Buytler, a son-in-law of Mr. N. Stich, the well-known pawnbroker, 
and got from him all the old swords, guns, pistols, and other arms with 
which the pawnshop was liberally supplied. Then, forming the resi¬ 
dents along the avenue into a well-organized patrol corps, he armed 
them with these miscellaneous weapons. The engine house became 
the headquarters of the corps, and many and many a bloody fight the 
patrolmen had until, after three days, the Government sent troops to 
quell the rioting. 


THE PAID DEPARTMENT OF TO-DAY. 

In the encyclopaedias, the books of foreigners upon this country, 
and, in fact, wherever New York is the subject of description or criti¬ 
cism, her Fire Department receives high praise. It is usually spoken 
of as the best appointed, best disciplined, and most efficient organiza¬ 
tion for fighting fire in the world. It is the model upon which many 
American cities have patterned their fire brigades, and intelligent 


FIGHTING FIRE IN NEW YORK. 


*5 


Europeans have frequently said and written that it is a pity that the 
firemen at home do not copy many of its features. In New York the 
popularity of this branch of the public service exceeds that of all the 
other departments. New York contains some of the modern wonders 
of the world, and is herself one of them, but her people are proudest 
of their firemen. It has been said of the people of Gotham that they 
have none of that civism, so strong and fresh elsewhere, that leads the 
Chicago man to boast of his parks, and the Bostonian to insist upon 
displaying the many monuments of his city’s past and present great¬ 
ness ; but if the New Yorker is not boastful, we assure the reader (and 
we have some authority to speak for him) that he is quietly and calmly 
confident in this one regard : that the New York Fire Department has 
its faults, but its merits are greater and more numerous than those of 
any other city’s fire corps. We do not commit ourselves for or against 
this sweeping assertion, but merely state the feeling in New York. 

The “paid ” department, as the present one is called, was organized 
in 1865, No. 1 Engine Company having been organized on July 31 
of that year and housed in that now departed building in the City Hall 
Park, which was afterward known as “The Sunstroke Hospital”—a 
receiving station for the desperately ill or badly wounded from the 
lower wards. Under the metropolitan system, the city is apportioned 
into twelve districts, each of which is served by a battalion of the 
department, commanded by a Battalion Chief and composed of several 
companies, usually four or five steamers, two hook and ladder trucks, 
and two or three spare engines with which to meet emergencies. The 
whole force is commanded, under the Commissioners of the Depart¬ 
ment, by Chief of Department Charles O. Shay, at a salary of $5,000. 
The First Assistant Chief, Hugh Bonner, commands the first six bat¬ 
talions at $3,800 a year, and the Second Assistant Chief, Francis J. 
Reilly, at $3,300 salary, commands the rest of the battalions. The 
Battalion Chiefs receive $2,500 a year, and are the following: 


1. John J. Cashman, 

2. Charles D. Purroy, 

3. Joseph F. McGill, 

4. Samuel Campbell, 

5. Thomas Lally, 

6. John J. Bresnan, 


7. Benj. A. Gicquel, 

8. John S. Fisher, 

9. Thomas Gooderson, 

10. Michael F. Reeves, 

11. Peter H. Short, 

12. William Rowe. 


i6 


FIRE SERVICE IN GREAT CITIES. 


The force, including officers, numbers 899 men, and has the use of 
61 steam fire engines, 26 hook and ladder trucks, 25 four-wheel tenders, 
40 two-wheel tenders, a supply wagon, two so-called “water towers,” 
and a forty-five foot ladder and stand-pipe on a portable turntable. In 
actual service there are 54 steamers and 19 trucks, and two of the 
steamers are what are called “floating engines,” or fireboats. These are 
large and powerful steamboats, one doing duty on each of the rivers that 
border the city, and assisting at fires in the riverside streets as well as 
protecting vessels in the harbor. These fireboats are properly classed 
as “steamers,” and are simply floating fire houses, connected with 
the fire telegraph systems as they lie warped to their wharfs. Each 
uses river water and is able to throw twelve streams. The “ Zophar 
Mills,” named after a popular old fireman, is classed as Steamer 51, and 
has the North River for its bailiwick. The “William F. Havemeyer,” 
named in honor of a former mayor, is Steamer 43. 

Each company in the department is commanded by a foreman at a 
salary of $1,800, and each one has an assistant foreman at $1,500. The 
pay of the engineers of steamers is $1,400. The firemen, or hosemen, 
receive $1,000 for the first year, $1,100 the second year, and $1,200 
during and after the third year. 

The difficulty attending an entrance in the force thoroughly pre¬ 
pares the members for the strict discipline and difficult and dangerous 
work they afterward encounter, and aids in maintaining the high 
standard aimed at by the law under which the department was organ¬ 
ized. Until very recently the special boast of the officers and their 
admirers, the public, was that politics never influenced the administra¬ 
tion of the affairs of the force. It is with deep regret that it is now 
admitted that the poison of petty statecraft has been instilled into the 
system, but it is not asserted by any one that the morale of the force 
has yet been injured, or that any such radical departures from the 
original principles of the organization have been made as to discourage 
the confident hope of the people that merit and efficiency will long 
remain the only qualifications for promotion and the necessary attri¬ 
butes of membership. 

To enter the force it is necessary for a man to present a written 
application, setting forth under oath the possession of the physical 
merits and antecedents required by the department. He must then 


FIGHTING FIRE IN NEW YORK. 


i7 


“go to school,” like any infant, for a period of thirty days, doing fire¬ 
man's duty at night, and being subjected to a scrutiny so close that if 
he fails in intelligence, pluck, endurance or behavior, the term of his 
probation is certain to end with dismissal. 

The schooling begins with a medical examination by one of the 
three department physicians. Passing that, the pupil goes daily to the 
Life Saving School for tuition in the use of the Pompier apparatus. 
An old sugar-house at One Hundred and Fifty-eighth street and 
North River is used for this purpose, and many and many an am¬ 
bitious man has felt his heart stand still and his stomach turn at 
sight of his fellow pupils walking up and down the sheer and dizzy 
front of this great building, with only their little hooks between them 
and death, very much more nearly after the manner of flies than of 
human beings. The very sight is often quite sufficient for an appli¬ 
cant, and he goes back to his country home or his trade perfectly 
satisfied to remain without the glory of a fireman’s career. If he is not 
daunted he buckles on his belt, takes up his slender and light hook and 
ladder, and discovers for himself what he can achieve in wandering up 
the precipitous face of the building, by hooking his ladder upon one 
window sill after another as he climbs from story to story until the cor¬ 
nice is reached. During his month of schooling his time is divided 
between this Pompier class and the older and original school of instruc¬ 
tion, in which he must familiarize himself with all the tools and imple¬ 
ments used in combating fire, the handling of ladders, axes, hose, and 
all the rest. In these advanced and enlightened days, the trucks carry 
sets of burglars’ tools modeled after the wondrously perfect “ kit ” 
captured at the time of the Manhattan Bank robbery a few years ago, 
so that the great city trains its men in a branch of the art of burglary 
— a very necessary accomplishment where there are so many iron doors 
and complicated locks to bar the firemen from the fires. This older 
school, or class, as it is called, is at Ninety-ninth street and Tenth 
avenue. The chief instructor of the department is Luke Gleason, 
and his assistant is Thomas Carney. Each pupil is detailed to a fire 
house at night to do duty as a fireman until he is either taken on regu¬ 
larly or rejected. 

In a short time, the two classes of this training school will be tutored 
in the handsome and costly new Fire Hall in East Sixty-seventh 


18 


FIRE SERVICE IN GREAT CITIES. 


street, near Third avenue, to which all'the contents of the old 
headquarters in Mercer street are soon to be removed. The new 
building is of brick, with carved stone trimmings, and will have a 
height of six stories, exclusive of the graceful tower that rises above 
one corner. The entire cost will be within $160,000, and the edifice 
will be, the architects say, one of the cheapest, for its size and quality, 
in the city. 

Just here a few words about this Pompier work will be interesting. 
The method is French, but was transplanted and perfected in the 
St. Louis Fire Department. In 1882, Christopher Hoel of that depart¬ 
ment came to New York to graft this auxiliary upon the fire service of 
the Metropolis. Volunteers to learn the use of the curious parapher¬ 
nalia were called for, the action being optional and no one being 
obliged to interest himself in the matter. The volunteers who formed 
the first class were Firemen Henry W. McAdams, John T. Needham, 
James Broderick, Samuel Banta, John McLeod Murphy, and William 
H. Jones. The Commissioners rewarded these ambitious men by pro¬ 
moting every one above the rank and file. The instruments used in 
this method of life-saving are as peculiar as they have proven to be 
excellent, and their introduction created a sensation in the force and in 
the city. The principal tool is a ladder, which is, in fact, merely an 
upright pole of wood bound with iron, and varying in length between 
fourteen and twenty feet. Rungs are run through the pole so as to 
project sufficiently far on each side to provide a resting-place for a 
man’s foot, for it is upon them that the climbing is done. On the 
upper end of each of these ladder-poles is a steel hook, two feet or four 
and a half feet or five feet long, so as to go over any window-sill when 
the life-saver throws it through a window, in order to have the bent 
end of the hook catch on the sill inside the building and fix itself there 
while he climbs the pole. These hooks are made of the best Nor¬ 
wegian malleable steel, thoroughly tested. 

A Pompier fully equipped wears a stout canvas belt, to the front of 
which is riveted a sturdy steel snap-hook. He carries an axe and a 
life-line, the line being tested to sustain a weight of 1,000 pounds, and 
all the accoutrements being made so as to weigh not more than four¬ 
teen pounds. In rescuing inmates of burning buildings, or in the 
preliminary work of breaking out the windows, the man snaps his belt 



FIGHTING FIRE IN NEW YORK. 


J 9 


hook to the ladder so that he can lean back against his belt and enjoy 
the free use of both hands. In the past two years every new comer 
on the force has been obliged to master this branch of the service, and 
to-day more than one-half the members of the department are Pom¬ 
piers. Each hook and ladder truck carries four Pompier ladders and 
three belts. 

The fire houses, or company quarters, are, as a rule, very plainly 
though completely appointed. There is almost a severe plainness 
about all of them, both within and without, and yet no device for the 
quick and thorough accomplishment of duty, or for the comfort of the 
men, is lacking in a majority of them. Take No. 17’s house, in 
Ludlow street, above Grand street, as an example. It is the head¬ 
quarters of one of the busiest companies in the department, and is 
commanded by Foreman George W. Erb. The main room on the 
first or ground floor is the resting-place of the apparatus. The horses 
stand on either side of the engine in open stalls, tethered, but only to a 
pin that is released by an automatic connection with the fire alarm 
apparatus, so that on the first stroke of the gong the animals are ablq 
to reach the sides of the pole with half a dozen steps. There is an 
extra stall and horse for the “tender.” Close to the alarm gong, on 
one side of the room and in front, is the watchman’s desk, usually upon 
a platform and often partially enclosed by a railing. There is a book 
upon the desk in which the man on watch enters the records of the 
work of the company. He is supposed to have charge of the house, 
like the “officer of the day ” on a man-of-war, but in a New York fire 
house the “ watches” are only of six hours’ duration. The men take 
turns at this duty, the “ watches ” being divided as follows : 8 a. m. to 
1 p. m.; ip. m. to 6 p. m.; 6 p. m. to 12 midnight; midnight to 6 a. m., 
and finally the “ dog watch ” from six o’clock to eight in the morning, 
performed usually by the man whose “ day off ” it is. 

The duty of the man on watch is to see that the horses are cared 
for, that the engine is in working order and in readiness for a fire, and 
that there are no breaches in the discipline of the department. 

What the discipline is may be imagined from the one fact that every 
alarm of fire in the entire city is rung in every fire house in the depart¬ 
ment, and, at night, every man must leave his bed and dress and fling 
himself down the sliding-pole, though the alarm may be sounding for a 


20 


FIRE SERVICE IN GREAT CITIES. 


fire miles away from his district. We have known the men in the engine 
house in City Hall Park to leave their beds twelve or thirteen times in 
one night for alarms that did not concern them. Every other fireman 
in New York did the same thing. It is in such ways that activity, 
alertness and constant readiness for duty are maintained. 

Over the watchman’s platform is the automatic alarm apparatus, 
now practically the same in all well-organized fire systems, and only 
varying in finish and style. By this arrangement the alarm is first 
sounded on a large gong, the electric current at the same instant re¬ 
leasing the horses and stopping the clock, which forms part of the 
arrangement, in order to record the time at which the alarm is received. 
By means of a simple “ relay ” instrument the alarm is repeated, the 
strokes on the parent machine at headquarters being echoed upon a 
tiny gong in each house. The first call on the big gong is an auto¬ 
matic result of the pulling of the lever of a signal box anywhere in the 
city; the repetition is sent out by the operator at Fire Hall for con¬ 
firmation and the sake of accuracy. 

But—you will scarcely credit it—even electricity is all too slow for 
these modern fire laddies. At the first stroke of the big gong the men 
and horses are often in their places, and it frequently happens that 
the whole company is delayed, the men standing idly and the horses 
champing impatiently, until the last stroke of the bell tells them 
whither they are to rush and releases them from the bondage of en¬ 
forced delay. It is a thrilling sight to witness .the reception of an 
alarm in one of these model engine houses. It was our good fortune 
to be present in Seventeen’s house the other day just as the gong 
sounded. It would be presuming upon the credulity of the reader 
to say that we could not have told, a moment afterward, what we had 
seen or what had happened, except from our knowledge of the modus 
operandi of responding to an alarm. 

We had just entered the tidy quarters and were conscious from a 
side-glance that a half-dozen men were in the back room reading or 
seated about a table, as if playing some game. There was a fireman 
on the stairs and another one or two moved about behind the stalls. 
It was a quiet and sleepy scene, the engine inert and cold-looking, the 
horses standing lazily, with eyes half closed. We were conscious of all 
this, but had no time to take a second glance when, clang ! sounded 



ENGINE SEVENTEEN RESPONDING TO AN ALARM. 



























































































22 


FIRE SERVICE IN GREAT CITIES. 


the lustrous brass bell on the wall. At the sound all was instantly 
confusion. With thundering steps the horses rushed toward the street 
and there was a whirl of men, falling to the floor, leaping from the 
sides of the room, and darting from the rear apartment. Clang, 
clang, clang ! the gong sounded ; click, click went the harness snaps 
— but description is too tedious ! Suffice it that there was a whirl 
of moving objects, and we stepped aside, to the wall, and then looked 
up and saw gallant old Seventeen rumbling out of the doorway into 
the street, followed by the tender and a belated fireman as well as by 
a cloud of street boys and by the eyes of the multitude in the number¬ 
less windows up and down the canon-like walls of high tenements. 
It was too quick for realization. It was motion turned to magic. 

We did not time the operation, but only seconds were consumed by 
it, and few of them. One company (Seven Engine) has framed upon 
the walls of its quarters a certificate of the fact that in November, 
1885, the horses were hitched and ready to start in one and five-eighths 
seconds from the sound of a bell stroke, the distance from stall-post 
to pole being twenty-one feet six inches. To quit a house in fewest 
seco?tds and quell a fire in the least number of minutes is the science 
that all good firemen are studying, and there is the most intense rivalry 
between the scholars. Seconds and minutes have taken the places of 
minutes and hours in the revolution the art of fighting fire has under¬ 
gone in twenty years. 

For seeing a lively company get to work Seventeen’s house in 
Ludlow street is the spot. The visitor is not likely to have to wait 
any great length of time, for Seventeen serves the district that is 
notorious as having the greatest number of fires of any section of 
the city. It is that section of the city lying between the Bowery and 
the East River, and bounded on the north and south by Houston 
and Market streets — a region of crowded tenements and small shops, 
which has so long enjoyed celebrity for the number of its fires that the 
insurance officials suspect fire is invited and encouraged there, and 
have of late refused a line of $150,000 worth of policies in that terri¬ 
tory. There’s no loafing for either the firemen or their engine in that 
locality. Last year they had to attend 294 fires, and in the last twenty- 
four months they ran to 569 fires, the steamer being at work no less 
than 107 hours, or more than four days of twenty-four hours each. 


FIGHTING FIRE IN NEW YORK. 23 

The engine that has this unenviable duty to perform cannot be 
said to rebel against its lot. For engines have their moods and their 
sufferings and their mishaps, just as do the men who manage them— 
at least some engines do. It is not mere poetry or sentiment that 
makes a locomotive engineer talk and think of his engine as of a 
human companion. He is right when he says of the iron monster 
under his feet “ She’s a little contrary this morning,” or “the old horse 

never felt better than to¬ 
day.” But “Seventeen” 
has never had a moment of 
indisposition, or been laid 
up on any account, except 
for a few hours while one 
wheel was at the Repair 
Shop, since she left the 
works of the Silsby Manu¬ 
facturing Company a 
little over two years ago. 
And yet the amount of 
work performed by this 
machine is greater than any 
other steamer in the New 
York Fire Department has 
had an opportunity to do, is 
so great, indeed, that the 
wonderful machine has been 
distinguished both in the 
official reports of the de- 
engineer Walter homer. partment and by special 

mention in the newspapers. 

We were curious to discover how the company’s engineer would 
speak of his charge. In the first sentence he spoke of it as “her.” 
That was sufficient, for had he been displeased the machine would have 
been “it ” or “the old teapot.” 

“ I like her,” said he. “ There’s nothing to corrode or rot about 
her, and when she’s doing her level best there’s nothing moving about 
her, no oil or waste flying and no racking herself to pieces. Then, 













24 


FIRE SERVICE IN GREAT CITIES. 


again, in other engines there are rubber valves that melt. When you 
‘ fire up ’ in the winter you find ’em frozen, and then they melt under 
the heat. She’s so arranged that we can keep her warm, and there’s no 
such thing as freezing her. Then, again, you can put her on a wharf 
and she’ll pick up water instantly, and all she can use of it, too. Two- 
thirds of the engines of other makes wouldn’t lift water at all. She has 
had a good deal of tough work, but she has always come away from it 
as good as she went at it, and ready for the next alarm.” 

The rough character of the work required in that cramped and busy 
and badly paved part of the city is eloquently shown in the usage this 
heroic steamer has had. Once a spoke was knocked out of one of her 
extra heavy wheels, and again a great lumbering brewer’s wagon ran 
into her, striking the iron frame a full, fair blow, and glancing off to 
the boiler, so that there is a deep gouge in the name-plate and in the 
surface of the stout frame-bar, and, farther along, in the cylinder and 
the outer sheathing of the boiler. If she had been a piston engine this 
probably would have disabled her, but as it was, it did not interfere 
with her performance at the fire she was hastening to at breakneck 
speed, and through the narrowest and roughest streets. As Assistant 
Foreman Needham said, “ It isn’t the actual service at a fire that tests 
an engine in New York, so much as the wear and tear in flying over the 
rough pavements and around the short corners.” It was further ex¬ 
plained that this engine weighs only 6,600 pounds ready for duty, while 
many of the engines of other patterns are heavier, and must be laid up 
in winter because they can’t be hauled any longer. “And yet, at the 
same time,” it was said, “this Silsby throws an inch and a half stream, 
which is as large as we ever have occasion to use.” 

Well may the firemen be proud of an ally so efficient steadfast and 
enduring, for it is not all of success to get to a fire first. Good work 
must be performed after reaching there, and in a company so con¬ 
stantly employed as is No. 17, it is gratifying beyond computation to 
work with a machine that responds to every call and seems almost 
never to need repairs. The table on the opposite page is a digest of 
the official record of work performed by this remarkable steamer since 
she was purchased by the department. How greatly this contrasts with 
the experience of many companies, the following notes will show : 
During 1885 Engine 41 went to 22 fires; Engine 42 to 19; Engine 


FIGHTING FIRE IN NEW YORK. 


2 5 


46 to 18 ; Engine 52 to 15 ; Engine 45 to 6, and Engine 49 (on Black¬ 
well’s Island) to one fire. Engines 45 and 49 did not succeed in getting 
to work at a single fire. The busy Silsby in use by No. 17 headed 
the list with 294 runs. She actually got to work during the year at 
83 fires. 


Month and Year. 

Number of Alarms 
Answered. 

Hours at Work. 

Minutes. 

J 

Month and Year. 

Number of Alarms 

Answered. 

Hours at Work. 

Minutes. 

1884. July 30 ... . 

I 

— 

- 

1885. August .... 

19 

2 

45 

August .... 

21 

3 

55 

September . . . 

22 

9 

05 

September . 

21 

1 

55 

October .... 

25 

4 

05 

October.... 

31 

5 

08 

November . . . 

21 

1 

10 

November . . . 

22 

2 

56 

December . . 

17 

4 

02 

December . 

39 

4 

28 

1886. January .... 

19 

7 

53 

1885. January .... 

33 

3 

37 

February . 

26 

6 

4i 

February . . . 

30 

18 

33 

March .... 

28 

2 

54 

March .... 

27 

7 

30 

April. 

13 

3 

— 

April .... 

27 

4 

4 i 

May. 

13 

1 

01 

May. 

27 

3 

35 

June. 

II 

1 

15 

June. 

16 

— 

48 

July. 

30 

3 

02 

July. 

30 

3 

02 




— 





T otals . . . 

569 

107 

1 


But to return to the appointment of the engine houses and the 
discipline of the force. In nearly all the houses the brass sliding-pole 
is in use and is highly valued. The only houses not fitted with it are 
those which are so narrow that there is no room for it, the requirement 
being that it shall stand at least eighteen inches or two feet from the 
wall. In houses where there is a sliding-pole, the “ playroom ” (or 
smoking or loafing room, as it is variously termed) is on the second 
floor, and in several houses the men have purchased, or been presented 
with, billiard tables or pool tables, or both. Checkers, chess, dominoes, 
and cards are permitted in all houses, but gambling is prohibited. The 
bunk rooms are fitted with a double row of white clad single beds on 
a carpeted floor, one wall of the room being taken up with lockers 
for the clothing of the men. There is comfort for tired men in these 





























26 


FIRE SERVICE IN GREAT CITIES. 



INTERIOR OF A NEW YORK ENGINE HOUSE. 


sleeping rooms, but a civilian would scarcely think so on seeing that 
every man, before retiring, fixes his trousers in his boot tops so as to 
slip on both with one movement when the gong wakens him out of his 
sleep. The foreman’s room is usually whatever he makes it, invaria¬ 
bly it is neat and comfortably fitted, but often the occupants add extra 
furniture, pictures, or ornaments of one sort or another, to transform 
their rooms into very stylish or, at least, very pretty apartments. 

Every New York fireman has twenty-four hours’ holiday once in 
every ten days, each man averaging seventy-two hours in a month. 
No two men are allowed to be “off” on one day, however. Once a 
year, during the summer, each fireman gets seven days’ vacation, or ten 
days if he chooses to add to his week his three days of the same month. 
Of course, all this time off is donated by the city and is not deducted 
from his pay. Company officers get ten days off and chiefs fifteen to 
twenty days. The city is even more liberal. In case of bereavement 
by the death of any blood relative, three days’ leave, with pay, is 
allowed. If a fireman wants time in which to get married, the 






































FIGHTING FIRE IN NEW YORK. 


27 



department grants him five days. In case a fireman is injured or com¬ 
plains of illness, he is at once sent home by his foreman and is followed 
there by a physician from department headquarters, who decides upon 
his case, and, if the illness is serious, attends him until he recovers. 
His salary is paid while he is confined to his house. “Shamming” is 
said not to prove successful, as the men have no acquaintance or influ¬ 
ence with the doctors. In the second quarter of 1886, 151 men were 
sick or injured, and were absent, under pay, 3,174 days. 

The department has a life insurance fund supported by the pay¬ 
ment of a dollar a month by each uniformed* full-fledged member of 
the department. It yields the widow and children of a fireman $1,000 
when he dies; or $300 to the relatives of a single man on his death. 
There is also what is called the “Fire Department Relief Fund,” which 
amounted last July 
to $470,675.50. It is 
supported by fines, 
interest, receipts 
from licenses for the 
sale of oil, powder, 
fireworks, and for 
the having of bon¬ 
fires, from the sale 
of condemned hose, 
donations, and part 
of the city excise 
moneys. It is ex¬ 
pended in pensions 
for retired men, 
a,nd widows and 
orphans. 

It costs about $1,750,000 a year to maintain the New York Fire 
Department. 


HOW A FIREMAN SLEEPS. 


THE NEW YORK FIRE PATROL. 


New York is especially to be envied on account of her Fire Patrol 
service. Its age, the completeness of its system and paraphernalia, 
and the wealth by which it is backed render it unique, in this country 













28 


FIRE SERVICE IN GREAT CITIES. 


at all events. Of course, every one understands that the Fire Patrol is 
a department under the Board of Fire Underwriters, a body made up 
of representatives of the principal insurance companies. In New York 
all the local companies except two are connected with the Board, and 
the principal foreign companies doing business there are also members. 
Their object is that which those who take risks on combustible prop¬ 
erty would naturally be interested in pursuing—the prevention rather 
than the extinguishing of fires, and the protection of property endan¬ 
gered during fires. The Underwriters have other departments or 
bureaus than the Patrol. One is the Rate and Survey branch, whose 
business it is to determine the character and rate of every building, 
and another is the Warehouse Department, devoted to the proper 
maintenance of storage warehouses, the proper construction of fire 
escapes, gangways, etc. But it is in the Fire Patrol branch, under the 
superintendence of that veteran and able fireman, Captain Abram C. 
Hull, that we are most interested. 

This branch of the work of the insurance men was organized in 
1839, with only a small corps of “bagmen”—old firemen who carried 
bags to wherever there was a fire and took away to places of safety 
every portable thing of value that they could rescue from either immi¬ 
nent or possible danger from the flames. Theirs was of the nature of 
heroic as well as hard work, for they returned again and again to enter 
the fire-enveloped houses as long as it was possible to do so and escape 
death. In time, a small patrol system, supplied with a little two¬ 
wheeled hand-wagon, carrying half a dozen covers, was established. 
Next a permanent station, a horse and a four-wheeled wagon, were 
had, and so the organization developed until, to-day, the service em¬ 
braces nine wagons, twenty horses, four stations, a Silsby steam fire 
engine, and 108 men, 34 of whom are permanent patrolmen under full 
pay, the rest constituting an auxiliary force employed only at night. 

The system divides the city into four districts, each with a station 
centrally situated. One is in Murray street, close to the great dry-goods 
district; the second is in Great Jones street, within easy reach of the 
principal retail stores ; the third is in Thirtieth street, close to the 
main hotels and huge French flats, and the fourth is in Ninetieth 
street, guarding the upper or residence end of the island. In each house 
there is a captain and a lieutenant, the sergeants in three of the houses 


FIGHTING FIRE IN NEW YORK . 


29 


being next in rank to the lieutenants. The pay of the captains is 
$2,000 ; of the lieutenants, $1,400, and of the sergeants, $1,100. Of 
the permanent force of privates the older men get $1,080 a year, and 
the new men $900, but eventually all are to receive the lower figure. 
The extra or auxiliary men serve only at night, when the fires are more 
frequent than during daylight, and the partial force is doubled, two 
wagons being manned in Stations One, Two, and Three, after half-past 
seven o’clock. The auxiliary men are paid $1.35 a night, and are 
chosen in a peculiar way best illustrated by the custom at the principal 
station, Number One. There the captain has a list or roll of thirty 
names of auxiliaries. Fifteen names are opposite the even dates of the 
month and fifteen are opposite the odd numbers. On a night bearing 
an even number for its date the fifteen “even” men all report, and 
nine are chosen in such a way that no person is called upon either 
more or less frequently than another. By this arrangement, each man 
works about twelve nights in each month. 

The Fire Patrol has nothing to do with the New York Fire Depart¬ 
ment, but the relations of the two services are, of course, very friendly 
and must continue so. The duty of a fireman is to extinguish fire, 
while that of a patrolman is to protect endangered goods from damage 
by water or even by fire. The patrolmen are obliged to get to a fire at 
least as speedily as the firemen, and, if possible, ahead of them, so as to 
be able to spread their covers before the engines begin to throw their 
streams on the flames. In case of a fire on the fourth floor of a five- 
story building, for instance, they must spread their covers over the 
goods on the third, second and first stories with the utmost celerity 
before the water thrown upon the fire reaches the stories and goods 
underneath. The patrolmen have at their command 550 stock covers 
and 200 roof covers. These covers are mainly of oiled duck. 

For a long while the patrol stations were automatically connected 
with the principal buildings in their districts by a special alarm system, 
and, very often, the patrolmen got word of fires ahead of the firemen; 
but this did not promote harmony between the two forces, and now all 
the automatic connections pass through Firemen’s Hall first. It used 
also to be the custom to pay the patrolmen a prize of one dollar each 
for putting out fires ahead of the arrival of the regular firemen, but 
this has been abandoned. It promoted contention and disorder. 


30 


FIRE SERVICE IN GREAT CITIES. 


The only steam fire engine in the service lies in the first station in 
Murray, near Church street. It is a Silsby engine, and is regarded by 
its owners as the possessor of a record as remarkable as it has ever 
fallen to the lot of a fire engine to make. It is used mainly after the 
extinguishment of fires by the Fire Department, in ridding the cellars 
of burned buildings of water. When it is understood that in nineteen 
cases out of every twenty the patrolmen find six inches, or less, of 
water in the cellars, and remove this with hand pumps, and the reader 
next learns of the prodigious amount of labor this Silsby engine 
performs, he will get an idea of the vastness of the fire service in the 
Metropolis such as he could hardly have gained by any other method. 
Roughly speaking, this patrol engine is only called upon for every 
twentieth fire, these exceptional demands being made in cases of down¬ 
town fires, in buildings possessing cellars or sub-cellars below the street 
sewers. Down town in New York nearly all the business houses have 
these deep cellars, and a steamer is needed for extracting the water. 
Up town, as a rule, there are no sub-cellars, and, most frequently, con¬ 
nection can be made between the cellars and the sewers, and the water 
drawn off in that way. 

This Silsby engine came into the possession of the Fire Patrol 
about six years ago, being new and fresh from the makers. Its first 
year’s record is that of 1881, when it was employed 285 hours and 18 
minutes, or almost twelve days. 

In the next year, 1882, it performed 1 6 x / 2 days of actual work, or 
396 hours and 23 minutes. 

In the year 1883 it was at work ten days, or 240 hours and 35 
minutes. 

In 1884 its record of usefulness embraced a period of operation 
amounting to 19^ days of 24 hours each, or 468 hours and 54 
minutes. 

Last year, 1885, the sum of the engagements it had in following 
after the Fire Department amounts to 392 hours and 22 minutes, or 
16 days and 18 hours. 

These very remarkable figures are taken from the official reports 
of the Fire Patrol, and are indisputable. The amount of duty per¬ 
formed that they indicate will be understood and appreciated by every 
fireman and by every person who has even a slender knowledge of the 


THE PATROL ENGINE AT WORK. 





I 


















































































































































































3 2 


FIRE SERVICE IN GREAT CITIES. 


capacity of steam pumping machinery. And yet it is necessary to 
understand the extremely rough and varied character of the work im¬ 
posed upon this extraordinary machine. It has not been her compara¬ 
tively easy lot to pump hydrant or even river water, as is the case with 
the machines of the Fire Department. On the contrary, her sturdy 
pumps and finely adjusted parts have had to battle with thick mud 
at times, with straw and jute, and manifold sorts of refuse and debris 
sometimes quite disproportionately mingled with the water that it was 
nominally and ostensibly her work to remove. 

“We have never tried her on paving-stones,” said a patrolman the 
other day, “ but I rather think she’d pump them if we put her at 
them.” 

The most remarkable service this steamer ever performed, and it 
seems scarcely likely that any more remarkable performance by an 
engine has ever been recorded, was at the great Hecker Mills fire, on 
and after July 31, 1882, at Market and Cherry streets, New York. 
She there performed 379 hours of service, running all day long, day 
after day, stopping only for an hour now and then when the water was 
low, and being shut down at night rather to relieve the men than to 
rest the machine. During the greater part of this period of remark¬ 
able work the engine was throwing a stream upon the ruins at the 
same time that she was pumping from them. 

Compare this with the working records of several engines in the 
New York Fire Department, and one sees that the inequality the 
reformers complain of in this world is not confined to mankind, but is 
shared as well by the uncomplaining engines that man employs. We 
read in a digest of the report of the Fire Department for 1885 that one 
engine in Manhattanville was at work only twenty or twenty-two min¬ 
utes, that another did not do any work, and that others worked at only 
six or five or two petty fires. Yet ip five years the Silsby engine of 
the Fire Patrol service was employed at actual work under steam 
1,783 hours and 35 minutes — or 74 days of 24 hours each. 

And she has never been out of service or laid up for repairs that 
took her from her work in all that period. From all her battles with 
fire and with water clogged with every sort of debris, she has returned 
to quarters ready to answer the next alarm in as perfect a condition 
as when her makers shipped her to New York from Seneca Falls. 


FIGHTING FIRE IN NEW YORK. 


33 


Just as the prevailing color in the Fire Department is blue, so in 
the Fire Patrol the characteristic tone is red. The great wagons upon 
which the men ride to the fires, and which also carry their covers and 
tools, are painted a showy light red, though the lettering upon them 
is very modest and plain. The working hats that the patrolmen wear 
are also as red as a Jersey barn or a Chinese sign, and very well that 
color serves, both for appearances and wear. The uniform of the serv¬ 
ice is otherwise very similar to that of the firemen, and the manage¬ 
ment of the men in quarters is almost precisely the same. The patrol 
stations are equipped with the same electrical alarm apparatus and 
the same paraphernalia for releasing the horses as well as for hitching 
them, with an instant’s work, to the wagon poles. The plan of detail¬ 
ing a patrolman to assume charge of the house in watches of regular 
duration is also copied from the Fire Department. 

The men of the patrol service are very comfortably housed. Each 
station has a cosey bunk room, carpeted and fitted with lockers, and all 
the other features of the fire houses, the captain’s room in each case 
being especially commodious and well appointed. It cost the Under¬ 
writers $92,023 to maintain the Fire Patrol in 1885. 

Station No. 3, in Thirtieth street, just west of the Sixth avenue, 
is provided with a time-saving device that is unique, so far as New 
York is concerned. Everybody who has seen a Christmas panto¬ 
mime in a well-equipped theatre knows how nimbly and unexpectedly 
the wiry Harlequin disappears through the flooring, exactly as if he 
had stepped upon a cloud or a sheet of water, at the precise moment 
that the wicked clown is about to chop his head off with a sword any¬ 
where from four to seven feet in length. It looks to a greenhorn in 
the audience as if the Harlequin was dropping with terrific force into 
a sub-cellar of the theatre, whence not even the pump of a Silsby en¬ 
gine could extract him in any shape that would be of any future service 
to the theatre company. With those who are initiated the case is dif¬ 
ferent. They know that the man either descends upon a well-balanced 
platform under the stage, or falls into a net or upon a mattress. 

This idea has been borrowed from the theatre and adapted for the 
use of Driver Abram Lyell, or his assistant, E. S. Root, in the Thirtieth 
street patrol station. The wagon floor is so small and cramped in 
this very small building that there is no room for a sliding-pole, and, 


34 


FIRE SERVICE IN GREAT CITIES. 


to compensate for this omission, just such a trap as we describe has 
been cut through the ceiling of the wagon room and the floor of the 
bunk room, close to the beds of these drivers. The trap has a low 
railing around it, and consists of a well about a foot deep, the bottom 
being divided so that one plank is nailed permanently fast, and to this 
is hinged the other two-thirds of the bottom, enabling it to swing 
downward into the wagon room when any weight is thrown upon it. 
Ropes properly weighted are attached to the free end of this trap, to 
bring it back to position and close the trap automatically after it has 
been used. In using it, each driver grasps the rail above the floor, 
throws his feet on the trap, rests an instant on the fixed part of the 
trap flooring, and then slides his body after his feet through the open¬ 
ing. He lands accurately on the wagon seat, and, at the same instant, 
grasps the reins, for the horses have already run to the pole and been 
harnessed, ready to start. The device works like a charm, and is very 
valuable from an economic point of view, but it could not be used so 
well in houses having a higher ceiling. The drop in this house, from 
the trap to the wagon seat, is hardly four feet. 



THE BOSTON FIRE BRIGADE. 


Boston’s Fire Department is distinctively a proud institution. It 
impresses a visitor as such before he has more than begun to inspect 
it, and the impression grows deeper the farther one examines into it. 
Not that we noticed any vanity on the part of the firemen, or heard a 
single boast that we can recall. But it is none the less a fact that it is 
finely equipped and well maintained, and that the citizens are proud of 
the firemen and the firemen are proud of the service. An atmosphere 
of conscious merit surrounds the various company quarters and the 
headquarters, and renders a day spent among the firemen a very 
delightful season indeed. Boston deals liberally with her institutions, 
and this one is honestly managed—or, at least, is more honestly man¬ 
aged than most of the fire departments in large cities. The Boston 
department is also, by the way, the largest and most thoroughly 
equipped, in proportion to the size of the city, of any in America. 

The organization of the department consists of a Board of three 
Commissioners, a Chief Engineer, a Superintendent of Fire Alarms, 
thirteen Assistant Engineers, and company officers and firemen, num¬ 
bering 689 men. The Commissioners get $3,000 a year apiece the 
Chief Engineer receives $3,000 ; the Assistant Engineer and Inspector 
of Hose and Harness, $2,000 : the nine other regular Assistant En¬ 
gineers are paid $1,600 each. The Superintendent of Apparatus Re¬ 
pairs receives $1,600. The company foremen receive $1,250 per 
annum, and the assistant foremen $3 a day. The engineers of the 
steamers are called “engine men” in Boston, and receive $r,2oo, their 
assistants earning $1,100. All the permanent hosemen and laddermen 
receive $1,000 a year during the first two years and $3 a day there¬ 
after. The Superintendent of the Fire Alarm Telegraph receives 
$2,800 a year. 

The Chief Engineer is the executive officer of the department, and 
all orders are issued by or through him. He is Mr. L. P. Webber, who 
worked his way to his present post by merit alone. He has had fifteen 
years of experience as a fireman. He is very popular with the force. 
The Superintendent of the Fire Alarm Telegraph, Capt. Brown S. 
Flanders, is, in all probability, as little in need of an introduction to the 


36 FIRE SERVICE IN GREAT CITIES. 

firemen of the land as any man could well be. He has been a fireman 
more than thirty years, has held almost every position in the force, 
and has always acquitted himself with great credit. 

The city is apportioned into ten districts, in each of which an 
Assistant Engineer is in command. The assistants are the following : 
i, Joseph Dunbar; 2, John Bartlett; 3, Lewis P. Abbott; 4, William 
T. Cheswell; 5, John W. Regan; 6, John A. Mullen; 7, George C. 
Fernald ; 8, Edward H. Sawyer; 9, James Munroe ; 10, J. Foster 
Hewins. There are three “ call” assistants in the outlying districts, 
who assume command at fires until they are relieved by one of the 
permanent assistants. 

The apparatus in use by the department comprises thirty-two 
steam fire engines in active service, and eight steamers in reserve ; 
six chemical engines, housed and manned, and three more in reserve ; 
twelve horse hose companies in service, and four spare carriages ; four¬ 
teen hook and ladder companies, and two more in reserve ; twenty-four 
fuel wagons, and a water tower. Two of the trucks carry extension 
ladders. The department also has a fine fireboat, the “William M. 
Flanders.” It cost $664,800 to maintain the department last year 
(1885). 

The department was under partial pay in 1859, at the time of the 
introduction of steamers, but it was not until 1873 that it became a full- 
paid department. The men receive two days’ leave in each month. 
They are allowed other leaves of absence, for good reasons, but their 
pay does not continue while they are off. The members enjoy the bene¬ 
fits of some notable funds. The Firemen’s Relief Fund, for instance, 
is sustained by a grand annual ball, for which tickets at two dollars each 
are purchased by every reputable merchant or manufacturer in town. 
One man in Twenty-five Engine Company, Mr. John F. McCarty, sold 
1,278 tickets to the last ball, and thus won the palm in a competition as 
intense and as interesting to the citizens as any that goes on in the city. 
This fund is managed by the mayor and the Fire Board, and is used for 
defraying the physicians’ bills when men are injured, for affording about 
half-pay to men who are ill, and for awarding a small sum for funeral 
expenses in cases where death overtakes a member. At the time of 
the last report the cash on hand was $17,000, of which $13,365.35 was 
derived from the ball on Washington’s Birthday, 1885. During the 


THE BOSTON FIRE BRIGADE. 


37 


year pensions were granted as follows : $300 to the widow of a hose- 
man killed in the service, $1.50 a day to each of two men permanently 
injured while at fires, and $1 a day to a man grown old and infirm in 
the service. 

Then there is a Mutual Insurance system, within the department, 
l 5 y means of which the heirs of a member who dies receive the pro¬ 
ceeds of an assessment of $2 per capita, amounting now to about 
$1,430. Then there is the Charitable Association, in which a member, 
if single, receives $7 a week when laid up, or more if he is married and 
has children, the largest weekly payment being $12. Members and 
ex-members of the department pay a small sum annually to sustain 
this fund, which has largely increased by donations, and now amounts 
to about $7,000, exclusive of a cemetery plot worth $40,000. There is 
also the Great Fire Fund of 1873, originally amounting to $100,000, and 
now standing at about $80,000, a grateful gift of the people. But the 
firemen complain that few of them have profited by it. The trustees 
are not firemen, and the succor vouchsafed from the fund has gone 
mainly for the relief of distress among firemen not belonging to the 
department, but who came to the city to assist in battling with the 
great fire. 

One of the prettiest sights in Boston is to be witnessed in the 
far-famed Back Bay district every evening. The quarters of Engine 
Company Twenty-two, on Dartmouth street, are in this fashionable dis¬ 
trict, surrounded by elegant dwellings and close to the Vendome, Bruns¬ 
wick, Victoria, and other first-class and exclusive hotels. The people 
of the district are very much interested in this fire company, and for 
several reasons. It is celebrated for its lightning-like speed in hitching 
up and quitting quarters, and it has one of the best and prettiest fire 
houses in the city. 

This differs from other houses in at least one important particular; 
the men’s sleeping apartment is a huge five-sided dormitory on the first 
story, beside the engine room and opening into it. It is as clean and 
neat as a Holland housewife’s kitchen, and, fortunate as are the ladies 
who look into it every day, none can say that their beds at home are 
any more neatly made or cleanly kept or inviting than these pretty 
couches, each with its white counterpane and embroidered pillow-sham. 
The engine room is very tidily kept, and is made quite showy by the 


3 S FIRE SERVICE IN GREAT CITIES. 

handsome patrolman’s platform at the door, with its rail of hard wood 
and its shining brass work, as well as by the glistening Silsby engine 
opposite the open door, the lustrous alarm apparatus on one wall, and 
the exquisitely carved panel let into the ceiling over the steamer’s pole, 



ENGINE 22’s BUNK ROOM. 


the latter being the handiwork of Henry Heymann, the engineer, who 
could make a more handsome income as an artisan, but who would 
rather fight fire than eat his meals. 

Close to the door and the patrolman’s desk is the shining sliding- 
pole of polished brass, piercing the usual circular opening in the ceil¬ 
ing, for use by the men when they are lounging in the reading-room. 
This room is at the back of the second story, and has its windows 
overlooking the Mechanics’ Fair building, as well as a popular ball- 
ground. There is a billiard table in this apartment. On the same 
























THE BOSTON FIRE BRIGADE. 


39 


floor is the bedroom of Foreman W. A. Gaylord, a model for any 
citizen’s apartment at home. The lieutenant, Mr. A. W. Brown, and 
the two engine men are also accommodated upstairs. 

To this model house the ladies begin to flock soon after half-past 
seven o’clock on every night, in order to be present at the practice 
drill which takes place at eight o’clock whenever the company is in 
quarters at that hour. The ladies occupy all the steps on the staircase 
at the side of the room, transform the railed enclosure at the patrol¬ 
man’s desk into a bouquet of human beauty, and cluster in large num¬ 
bers on the sidewalk in front of the open door. Even the horses 
enclosed in their stalls behind the engine grow nervous as they scent 
the coming excitement. At eight o’clock the gong sounds, the stall 
doors fly apart, the men leap from the bunk room or drop, like india- 
rubber men, lightly from the floor above, the horses take their places, 
the clasps of the harness are snapped, the men leap on the fire tray and 
on the hose wagon, and the company is in readiness for an imaginary 
fire anywhere in the Brighton district. A patter of little gloved hands 
expresses the delight of the ladies over this marvelous exhibition. For 
marvelous it is, indeed, since many a time and oft the company has got 
ready for departure in seven seconds, and quit the house in three more 
seconds — feats never excelled in any house in Boston. The approba¬ 
tion of the citizens has taken substantial form in the donation of books 
to such an extent that the company now has a library of over 200 
volumes. 

The ladies greatly admire the intelligent, well-trained horses, Bill, 
Dick, Grief, and Stranger, and bring them apples and candy. It is 
with regard to the disposition of their 
horses that the Boston firemen show 
more shrewdness than the New 
Yorkers. The stalls are behind a 
wall that completely shuts them off 
from the rest of the building, and 
prevents the stable effluvia penetrat¬ 
ing the whole quarters, as must be 
the case where the stalls are open, no 
matter how much care and cleanliness are exercised. Each stall in a 
Boston fire house opens into the engine room by means of double doors 













4 o 


FIRE SERVICE IN GREAT CITIES . 


that are worked automatically by springs and by an electric current. 
The doors have window lights opposite the heads of the animals. 

The Boston men are very proud of the hose wagons used in the 
department. They look more than anything else like the Fire Patrol 
wagons in use in New York. They are simply big, square-boxed, four- 
wheeled wagons, ten feet long by four feet wide, with a high seat, high 
sides, and no tailboard. They are painted a bright red, and lettered 
boldly and gorgeously, with much ornamentation in gold-leaf. A gilt 
handrail is run along the top of each sideboard. The hose is laid 
“fore and aft” in the body of the wagon ; boots, overcoats, and rubber 
clothing for the men are kept on the board cover over the box in which 
the hose is carried, and on that cover the hosemen ride to the fires. 
“ They beat the old-fashioned reels all to pieces,” is the verdict of 
every fireman to whom we have talked about these big and showy 
wagons. They carry about 600 feet of hose so laid that the butt comes 
to the back edge of the wagon in the middle of the folds of hose. 
When the wagon reaches the plug, one hoseman takes the butt between 
his finger and thumb, and, holding on firmly while the wagon is driven 
off, lands the whole length of hose on the ground. The wagon is 
found to be serviceable in carrying dead and wounded persons from 
fires, and in bringing extra supplies of coal from the supply depots. 
Every steamer in Boston is attended by one of these wagons, and there 
are extra hose wagons, beside, which are rendered more useful there 
than in most cities, because the water runs from the street hydrants 
under a pressure of from 45 to 60 pounds, and in some places even 
100 pounds. The pipes are here fitted with shut-off nozzles working 
in connection with automatic relief valves on the engine pumps to 
relieve the strain when the water is shut off. 

Captain Gaylord is very proud of the new Silsby engine, with 
which he has been doing heroic service during the past three years. 
“We have had to work her sixteen hours, and seventeen and eighteen 
hours, steadily, a number of times, and once we kept her going twenty 
hours at a stretch. We like her very much, and we don’t ask any 
odds of any of the rest of them.” 

Twenty-two covers the whole of that suburban area known as 
“the Brighton district,” and while the streets are splendid thorough¬ 
fares, mainly macadamized, it is not uncommon for the steamer to have 




THE BOSTON FIRE BRIGADE. 


4i 


to take a run of five miles over rough country roads that are terribly 
hard on an engine. Hardly had this company received this Silsby 
engine when there was an alarm for a fire on a lumber wharf, where 
she had to work two lines twenty hours. She returned to the house in 
perfect condition, and, in fact, “ has never needed any repairs worth 
speaking of,” as the Captain says; “ only ones of the most trifling 
description.” 

“We had a big Silsby steamer,” he added, “ that worked on the 
famous Clinton street fire five days and nights, in midwinter, draught¬ 
ing her own water out of the cellar and playing it back again upon the 
building. She is with Twenty-six Company now, back of the Boston 
Theatre.” 

There are five SilsbY steam fire engines in the employ of the 
Boston Fire Department. It is a hard city upon fire apparatus, be¬ 
cause in all the older parts of the town the streets are exceedingly 
narrow and crooked. They are so narrow, in fact, that in many of 
them there is no room for upright plugs, and the hydrants are flush 
with the street. An iron cover has to be lifted, and then a screw is 
disclosed, to which must be fitted the brass “ hydrant chuck,” with four 
connections, which each engine carries. These plug holes are placed 
250 feet apart in the business districts. The racking and straining to 
which the machines are subjected as they are dashed around the sharp 
corners of these narrow streets is excessively trying to the running 
gear of the heavy apparatus. 

We visited the quarters of Twenty-five Engine on Fort Hill square, 
in the same great building with Hook and Ladder Eight and Ladder 
Fourteen. This is in the heart of a commercial quarter of the town, 
as closely built with fine mercantile houses, and stored with goods 
as valuable, as any' companies protect anywhere outside the famous 
“ Dry-goods district ” on the west side of Manhattan Island. The 
steamer housed in this important fire station is also a Silsby, and 
Foreman C. O. Poland spoke very highly of it. 

He said that when this particular steamer was delivered to the 
department, it threw an inch and a half stream a distance of 319 feet, 
which he considered at least “as good as any piston engine could do.” 
No engine company in Boston is more frequently called upon, or finds 
itself more often obliged to combat serious fires, so that the engine 


42 


FIRE SERVICE IN GREAT CITIES. 


attached to the company must be an uncommonly good one to prove 
satisfactory. At a fire in a large granite warehouse on Clinton street, 
last January, this steamer was forced to work all day, and yet, great as 
this performance was, it had been completely overshadowed by a trial 
to which the engine was subjected last summer at a fire in a bonded 
warehouse stored with jute on Lewis Wharf. The steamer was in 
action during forty hours at that fire. First she was engaged for 
seventeen consecutive hours; then there was a rest at night, and next 
morning the pumps were started again, not to cease working for an in¬ 
stant until ten hours had passed. On the following day the work was 
taken up and maintained thirteen hours longer. “She worked steadily 
and bravely,” said the engineer ; “and she came back all right. Not 

a cent was spent 
upon her in conse¬ 
quence of that long 
siege of work. In 
fact, the only ‘ lay 
off ’ she has ever 
had was for a bro¬ 
ken axle.” 

The character of 
the liquid refuse this 
steamer pumped up 
at that Lewis Wharf 
fire is said to have 

been such as to cause surprise that an engine’s pumps could handle 
it. Jute, beer, oil and heavy muck were some of the ingredients of the 
mass that was lifted and discharged as freely as if it had been clear 
water. In the first year of this steamer’s work in Boston, she was 
dragged to 208 fires and alarms for fire. 



A BOSTON ENGINE HOUSE. 


Twenty-'five’s house is very frequently the objective point of influ¬ 
ential business men and officials who wish to exhibit to strangers the 
manner in which Boston wisely guards her interests by sustaining this 
important branch of the government. The manner in which the house 
is maintained, as well as the appearance of the athletic and intelli¬ 
gent men who compose the company, justifies the choice of this house 
for illustrative purposes. The house and all the appointments are in 










THE BOSTON FIRE BRIGADE. 


43 


splendid order, and are as good as.could be asked for. No ship’s deck 
was ever tidier than the main room where the steamer stands, every 
feature from the patrolman’s desk to the horses’ stalls being kept as 
if in perpetual readiness for inspection. Both Foreman Poland and 
Lieutenant Neal were courteous and entertaining in spite of the 
trouble they were put to by our visit. Their quarters and the general 
bunk room upstairs were more than comfortably fitted, and in the 
reading or lounging room the men had set up a billiard table. Smok¬ 
ing, dominoes, checkers and billiards are permissible in the depart¬ 
ment, but the playing of cards is forbidden. The sliding-pole is in 
use there; in fact, the Boston department adopted it as early as any 
department on the seaboard, but the men have never taken down the 
straight bar with which they extended the baluster on the stairs, so 
that, before the days of sliding-poles, they could leap on the smooth 
rail and reach the ground-floor almost as quickly as they do now by 
the pole ; indeed, to this day, if one of Twenty-five’s men is nearer 
the stairs than the pole, he throws one hip on the baluster, leans one 
hand on the opposite rail against the wall, and shoots down to the 
foot of the stairs and out into the room quite as quickly as any one 
can say “Jack Robinson.” 

In all the fire houses that one visits in any city in which the beau¬ 
tiful animals that drag the machines are trained to work in unison 
with the electric alarm system, most interesting stories are told of 
the proofs of unexpected intelligence these horses are constantly ex¬ 
hibiting. In Steamer Seventeen’s house at 91 Ludlow street, in New 
York, the tender is hauled by a great, ungainly looking white horse 
called “ Bingo,” who has been a fire horse fourteen years. He can be 
relied upon to perform his share toward getting the company to a 
fire as confidently as any of the men can ; in fact, he works with the 
precision of a machine rather than an animal. He is extravagantly 
fond of sugar, and never forgets the face of any one who tenders him 
a lump. It is said that if a person he has never seen before treats him 
to sugar and then does not come back again until a year later, Bingo 
will give signs of recognition and delight upon seeing him. Another 
New York horse is said to have learned to trip the gong and to have 
frequently unhitched his halter and sounded a stroke on the bell, at 
dead of night, whether for the joke of the thing or from loneliness and 


44 


FIRE SERVICE IN GREAT CITIES. 


a desire to see the men, no one can say. This story we will not vouch 
for, but it has been published as a fact in the papers. What the patrol¬ 
man at the desk was doing while the horse was at this play is not 
stated. But it is a fact that the fire horses learn to shake their heads 
for “ yes ” and “no,” to lift a front hoof as if to shake hands, and even 
to distinguish between a genuine alarm and one sounded for exhibi¬ 
tion purposes. 

Twenty-five’s horses in Boston are named “Stranger,” “Hope¬ 
ful,” “ Bull,” and “Tige.” Their stalls are closed in front, but behind 
them there is nothing but a chain across the back of the stall. Against 
the rear wall of the building, behind all the stalls, is a box shaft lead¬ 
ing from a grain bin somewhere in an upper story. When the horses 
are to be fed, the door of the box at the bottom of this shaft is opened, 
a wooden measure is placed under the shaft, and a slide is pulled out 
to allow the grain to pour into the measure. Out of the side of one 
eye one of these horses watched this process, day after day, for 
months, until he got it into his head that he could do it as well as any 
man, and that it would save a great deal of trouble for him to help 
himself. So he unhitched the stall chain, bit open the door, and, 
catching the projecting end of the slide between his teeth, pulled at 
it and let down upon the floor all the feed there was in the upper 
story. This is no romance. It is vouched for by the men of the 
company. And not only once has this horse performed this trick, 
but it has happened again and again, and will come to pass in the 
future if they do not either lock up the horse or the grain shoot. 

In parting with the Boston Fire Department it is only just to add 
that it is conducted on business principles, and that it has been very 
little manipulated by politicians or affected by partisanship. In prin¬ 
ciples and the general plan of its organization it closely resembles 
the New York department, with which it feels itself related by many 
bonds of mutual respect, by friendships between the officers, and that 
interest which is begotten of amicable rivalry. 


PHILADELPHIA FIRE LADDIES. 


The paid Fire Department of the Quaker City was organized on 
March 15, 1871, and supplanted a volunteer department that contained 
some of the most famous “ show ” companies in the country, as well as 
some that had achieved national reputations as fighters and as poli¬ 
ticians. The annual parades, the great balls, the excursions, and the 
political feuds for which the Philadelphia boys are celebrated, were 
supposed to be unequaled by any efforts or products of the New York 
or Boston volunteer organizations in the same line. The Philadelphia 
volunteers had the most complete department, in all probability, that 
existed in America. There were ninety companies, each of which 
owned its outfit independently of the city, and could do exactly as 
it willed, quitting a fire or remaining at it, according as the members 
chose. 

The tax upon the citizens for defraying the cost of this service was 
about $110,000 to $115,000 annually, but this represented only about 
a third of the actual outlay. It just about paid the salaries of the 
drivers and engineers, and the cost of the horse-feed. The rest the 
firemen raised and contributed by means of balls and excursions, and 
through donations from citizens. 

The change to a partially paid department in 1871 followed after 
a long discussion, and at a time when the citizens, and even the more 
sensible members of the volunteer force, had come to the conclusion 
that the volunteer service had outlived its usefulness. Under the new 
system, during the first year, the men were paid only $30 a month, and 
were presumed to work at regular occupations and to bunk in the fire 
houses, that is, with the exception of the engineers, stokers and drivers, 
who were paid to make the vocation of a fireman their sole concern. 

Strangely enough, although the men scattered over the city were 
expected to hear the alarm-bells and quit work at once, the munici¬ 
pality abandoned the bell-towers and adopted the telegraphic system, 
so that the scattered force was rendered next to useless. In the 
second year, one-half the force was paid for continuous service, and 
in the third year, 1873, the department became a full paid branch 
of the government. 


46 


FIRE SERVICE IN GREAT CITIES . 


It will seem like a severe commentary upon the efficiency of Phila¬ 
delphia’s fire brigade simply to record the fact that for an annual 
appropriation of only about half a million dollars it is expected to con¬ 
trol a field of frequent battle with fire, embracing 129 square miles of 
city territory. It is not a first-rate department, but it is nevertheless 
remarkably efficient when the obstacles it has to contend with are fairly 
considered. The reason for this is that its leading men are as fine a 
body of fire fighters as any city possesses. They have suffered, and 
still suffer, from a niggardly and wholly inadequate financial support, 
from the fact that their implements are, as a rule, primitive, often 
home made, and in poor condition, and from the tendency the officials 
have had toward maintaining the force as a tender to the political rings 
or machines that control the government. We write thus frankly, be¬ 
cause it does not reflect upon the able and earnest men who have long- 
been imposing upon themselves the burden of an endeavor to raise the 
department above the evils that beset it, and, further still, because 
there is a golden lining to the cloud in the shape of a reform char¬ 
ter for the city that will be in force early in the coming spring, and 
that is aimed to narrow down to fewer men the responsibility for such 
abuses of public trust as have scandalized that grand old city. 

At present there are seven Fire Commissioners above the actual 
executive, Mr. John R. Cantlin, the Chief Engineer, who is, we believe, 
second to no chief in the country in the possession of experience, pride 
in his work, or shrewd and practical ideas upon the subject of combat¬ 
ing fire. Under Chief Cantlin, whose salary is $3,000, are six assistant 
chiefs, or District Engineers, as they are called. These are Joseph T. 
Hammond, W. F. Mooney, James C. Baxter, Jr., William Stagart, John 
Smith and John Humphreys, the salary of their office being $1,500 per 
annum. The city is districted in such a manner that two assistant 
engineers respond to every alarm, except in the sparsely settled outer 
wards, fires in which are attended by only one assistant. The chief goes 
to all second or third alarm fires on principle, and to minor fires when¬ 
ever he finds it possible to do so. The foreman of each company 
receives a salary of $1,000, engineers get $1,000 also, and the assistant 
foremen receive the same pay as privates. The stoker, or assistant to 
the engineer, in this department is called a “ fireman.” It is his duty 
to drive the hose cart or “tender.” The private members of the 


PHILADELPHIA FIRE LADDIES. 


47 


force are called “hosemen.” There are 474 men in active service, 
exclusive of the executive officers. The pay of a hoseman is $800 a 
year, and an effort is being made to raise this sum to $900. 

Two departures from the systems in most large cities strike the 
stranger queerly. There is no detail of a man on watch in any of the 
houses, and the familiar “sliding-pole,” without which the other large 
fire brigades would now feel helpless, is not in use in the Quaker City. 
We asked why this was the case, as to the sliding-pole, and received 
this answer : 

“They tried the pole in Truck B’s house and didn’t like it. So 
many of the men got sprained ankles that it was taken down.” 

As to the detailing of a watchman on the main floor, we were in¬ 
formed that it was never found to be necessary. There is always 
somebody on that floor, it was said, “except after midnight, when all 
the men are apt to be in bed upstairs.” 

The hosemen are allowed one day of twenty-four hours in each six 
for a day of rest, and the matter is so arranged that two men always go 
off together, each couple taking their turn so as to make each day the 
sixth day for two of the men. For a summer vacation, each hoseman 
has seven days, but the men are allowed so to exchange or reserve 
their holidays as to get ten, or even fifteen, consecutive holidays if they 
want them. It is said that a Philadelphia fireman is supposed to leave 
the city when he takes a vacation. The pay is continued during these 
holidays. In cases of sickness a member of the force reports to the 
foreman, who sends the ill or injured man home, and, if he does not 
return in two or three days, sends to see how the absentee is getting 
along, reporting the case meanwhile to the department in the daily 
blank that is filled up every morning in each house and collected by 
an assistant chief. There are no doctors in the service of the de¬ 
partment, but if a man on sick leave is found to be shamming, he is 
apt to be caught and made an example of. Pay continues during ill¬ 
ness, but a sick man must report for at least one day at the end of each 
six months. Leave to be absent is granted for a reasonable time in cases 
of the marriage of a hoseman or the death of a blood relative. The uni¬ 
forms worn in the department are very like those in use in New York. 

The Philadelphia department has thirty-two engines, designated by 
numbers, and six trucks that are lettered A, B, C, D, E, F. The trucks 


48 FIRE SERVICE IN GREAT CITIES. 

carry extension ladders 83 to 87 feet in length. 1 here are no water 
towers in use by the department. The city had one chemical engine 
last year, and, as another one was ordered last autumn, it probably 
now has two. Within the city limits the old-fashioned two-wheeled 

hose carts are used as tenders to the steamers, but, in the outlying 

wards, four-wheeled tenders, drawn by two horses, are in use. 

It used to be the custom 
for the City Council to vote 
$500 to the relict or chil¬ 
dren of a fireman killed in 
the discharge of his duty, 
but, unfortunately, even this 
petty tribute to bravery is no 
longer paid. For relief for 
their families, these poorly 

paid men have nothing now 

to depend upon beyond their 
meagre savings, except the 
mortuary dividends of the 
Relief Association of the 
Philadelphia Fire Depart¬ 
ment, whose fund is man¬ 
aged by trustees elected by 
the firemen. Each surviving 
member pays in one dollar 
on the death of a member, and about $600 is realized by the heirs. 
There is a surplus fund of about $3,000 to the credit of the associa¬ 
tion, created by the payment of an initiation fee of $3 by each mem¬ 
ber and by the accumulation of interest. Members who quit the 
force can keep up their connection with this fund. It appears to 
be the rule that men who are disabled or grow old in the fire service, 
while not pensioned, are retained on the pay-rolls as clerks, messengers, 
assistants, or in one capacity or another, at headquarters or elsewhere. 

About as neat company quarters as we saw were those of Steamer 
Thirty-two, in Decatur street, near Market, a four-storied, wide building, 
with the main room on the ground-floor, finished in yellow pine, and the 
whole building as neatly furnished and as well and tidily kept as any fire 



READING-ROOM. 















































PHILADELPHIA FIRE LADDIES. 


49 


house anywhere. The great airy bunk room on the main floor is prettily 
carpeted and supplied with handsome walnut beds and commodious 
lockers. The foreman, Captain Henry Hollwarth, has a room on the 
same floor, and back of that is the loafing room for the men, which is 
plainly but completely furnished. The men also enjoy the use of a 
bath room. The third floor is used for storing feed for the department, 
and the fourth is unemployed. When the men are in the reading-room 
or in their beds they answer the alarm gong by running down-stairs 
in the old-fashioned way, but they assert that even then they are fre¬ 
quently obliged to wait in 
their places on the steamer 
and tender for the com¬ 
pletion of the electric call. 

They say that, at an in¬ 
spection, they have hooked 
up in nine seconds, but the 
time consumed in an actual 
departure from the house 
had not been taken. The 
horse stalls are behind the 
engine, as in the Boston 
houses. 

This house is fitted with 
an alarm signal apparatus 
so perfect that the chief 
felt constrained to notice it 
complimentarily in his last 
annual report. It is very 



GLIMPSE OF 32’s HORSES. 


handsomely made, and is kept in as bright and showy a condition as 
a piece of plate in a ducal mansion. It consists of the usual parts, 
the telegraphic relay and key, the clock, the gong, and the automatic 
machinery for economizing time and labor in the rush of a response 
to an alarm. The especial beauty of the apparatus lies in the finish 
and delicate adjustment of all its parts. First, the smaller instru¬ 
ment, or “joker,” as it is called, sounds the signal, and by the first 
backward motion of the hammer of the gong preparatory to striking, 
the automatic trip lever is freed, and throws the stall doors open, 






























5 ° 


FIRE SERVICE IN GREAT CITIES. 


stopping the clock also at the same instant. The adjustment or 
balance of the machinery controlling the trip lever is so delicate that 
it almost seems as if a fly might free it by lighting upon it. 

Thirty-two was organized November 5, 1885, in deference to the 
demand for more complete protection for the heart of the business sec¬ 
tion of the city. There 
had been more work than 
the engines in that part 
of town could perform, 
and this new company, 
demanded by the citi¬ 
zens, was well housed 
and equipped with the 
best machine that could 
be purchased, in the ex¬ 
pectation that it would 
have more than its share 
of hard work. It would 
be impossible to con¬ 
ceive of a more beautiful 
piece of machinery than 
the Silsby steam fire 
engine in these quarters. 
The firemen keep it shin¬ 
ing like a golden lamp. 
They are more than sat¬ 
isfied ; they are proud of 
it. Their first trial of it 
was made on January 20, 
1886, and a very severe 
trial it proved to be. It 
was at a fire in an oil 
and lamp fixture estab- 
of buildings occupied by 
other highly inflammable 



MODEL TELEGRAPHIC APPARATUS. 

lishment at 115 Arch street, one of a 


row 

dealers in petroleum, gasoline, benzine, and 
stores. For fifteen hours, without cessation, that engine worked at that 
fire and threw two streams the whole time. 











































PHILADELPHIA FIRE LADDIES. 


5i 


Six days later, soon after midnight, the company was called to a fire 
that had gotten such headway as to be illuminating the heavens at the 
time the alarm was sent out, the reason for this being that the regular 
change of police squads was being effected, and the beginning of the 
fire had not attracted attention before the retiring squad was relieved. 
The building was a tive-story structure at 715 and 719 Arch street, next 
to the St. Cloud Hotel. Before it was arrested, the fire crossed Car¬ 
man street and attacked the buildings on the other side. The build¬ 
ing was a repository for general merchandise, the loss on which was 
about half a million dollars. Thirty-two’s steamer played on the flames 
until nearly noon of the next day, a period of eleven hours, without 
stopping. Again she threw two streams and returned from a second 
test of the most exacting character, in perfect order, and ready to 
repeat the performance. Up to the time of our visit there, last autumn, 
this engine had never been in the repair shop or given her engineer an 
instant’s trouble. 

“ Beside the fifteen-hour and the eleven-hour fires,” said Mr. Henry 
C. Hicks, the engineer, “ she has had to work in spells of four, five, or 
six hours quite frequently. She has never disappointed us—in fact, she 
has done a great deal better service than any engine of any other make 
in this department. She is lighter than any other make of steamer 
in this city, though her running gear is as strong as any. She did not 
freeze up once during the winter, and nothing got out of order about 
her ; in fact, I don’t see anything about her to get out of order; there 
is nothing moving when she works, except the pump.” 

In leaving Philadelphia a note should be made of the fact that the 
city has never been visited with a gigantic conflagration, like any one 
of those that ravaged London, New York, Portland, Chicago and Bos¬ 
ton in times past. This is in itself flattering to the firemen of the 
Quaker City, for until the evil occurs they have the right to boast, or 
at least to think, that but for their work it might have occurred. And 
yet, if such a disaster should take place, the government and the citi¬ 
zens of that old town would better appreciate their firemen, and give 
them more generously of the means to make their department the envy 
of other cities. 


IN OTHER CITIES. 


Mention has been made in the preceding pages of the unexampled 
records made by the Silsby steam fire engines in the departments of the 
principal cities. Space will not permit our going into details as to the 
work done by the same machine in smaller cities, and yet the reader 
will easily perceive that there is no lack of material, since nearly one- 
half the fire engines in use are of this pattern, and they have been 
before the public almost thirty years. To be precise, of the 200 cities 
of the Unitied States of from 10,000 to 40,000 population (census of 
1880), more than half use the Silsby. In many enterprising communi¬ 
ties the departments are replacing piston engines with Silsby steamers 
on account of the greater efficiency and slight liability to get out of 
order of the latter machines. This is being done in New Orleans, 
Detroit, Richmond, New Haven, Syracuse, Paterson and Hartford, 
cities that formerly used piston engines exclusively. The following 
table gives a list of the cities of more than 40,000 population that are 
using this thoroughly satisfactory steam fire engine, with the date at 
which these steamers were first introduced in each place : 


Columbus, 0 . 


Cleveland, O. 

1863 

Paterson, N. J. 


(Almost exclusively Silsby engines.) 


Toledo, O. 

. . . 1861 

Buffalo, N. Y. 

1859 

Fall River, Mass. 

• • 1873 

Washington, D. C. 

1870 

Scranton, Pa. .... 

. . . 1874 

Detroit, Mich. 


Reading, Pa. 

• • 1875 

(Four Silsby engines in the past three years.) 

Hartford, Conn. . . 

. . . 1883 

Providence. 

i860 

Wilmington, Del. 

. . 1873 

Rochester. 

1861 

St. Paul, Minn. 

. . . 1866 

Allegheny. 

1884 

Chicago. 

. . 1858 

(A further order just received.) 


New Orleans .... 

. . . 1883 

Richmond . 

1881 

Syracuse, N. Y. 

. . 1885 

New Haven . 

1883 

Kansas City .... 

. . . 1868 

Worcester, Mass. 

i860 


The points of superiority of the Silsby engine may be briefly stated 
as follows : There is an entire absence of valves, connecting rods, 
eccentrics, cross-heads, cranks, balance wheels, packing plates, and the 
numerous complications of other engines. An experienced engineer is 
not required to operate it, nor keep it in order, although it is desirable 
that the man having charge of any such piece of machinery should 
have some knowledge of mechanics or the uses of steam. 























THE SILSBY IN OTHER CITIES. 


53 


The machine stands perfectly still while running even at its greatest 
speed. The motion of the pump being equable, continuous and rotary, 
no blows are given to the water, which enters and leaves in one steady 
flow, and there is no irregular motion to the stream. With the same 
nozzle and pressure, one man can hold the discharge pipe of a Silsby 
engine as easily as three can manage that of a reciprocating machine. 

There being no valves in either the engine or pump to clog, dry up, 
or rot, the machine is always ready for service, no matter how long it 
may have stood unused. The pump does not require priming, and 
will lift water the full length of the suction hose. Leaves, sticks, saw¬ 
dust, and other foreign substances that would soon clog a piston pump, 
can be worked with the rotary. Anything that can enter the suction 
strainer will pass through the pump without injury or interruption. 

The Silsby engine has the quickest steaming boiler for practical 
purposes yet invented ; that is, it will force an effective fire stream, 
raising steam from cold water, in less time than any other engine built. 
It will also force a larger quantity of water and throw it to a greater 
distance than any other make of engine of equal size or weight. In 
substantiation of this claim, we refer to the results accomplished in the 
trials of these engines. A comparison of this work with that performed 
by engines of equal size or weight of other manufacturers, will con¬ 
vince the most skeptical that the claim is well founded. The Silsby 
engine will do good fire duty through any lengths of hose, say 3,000 
feet or more. 

From its simplicity of construction, the Silsby engine is not liable 
to get out of order, the cost of repairs is reduced to a minimum, and 
when repairs are necessary, they can be made anywhere. In cities 
where both Silsby and piston engines have been in service under like 
conditions and circumstances, a comparison of the relative cost of re¬ 
pairs has always resulted largely in favor of the former. The expense 
of hose, from an economical point of view—to say nothing of the loss 
of property from delay caused by bursting of hose at fires—is an im¬ 
portant consideration, and it is an established fact that hose used on 
a Silsby engine will last fully twice as long as that used on a recipro¬ 
cating machine. 

Owing to the steadiness of the Silsby engine while in operation, it 
does not rack itself, as is the case with the piston machines. It will 


54 


FIRE SERVICE IN GREAT CITIES . 


withstand the most severe service, and will run for any length of time 
as well as for one hour. This has been demonstrated in cases of emer¬ 
gency in numerous instances in various parts of the country, when 
these machines have actually worked from one to four weeks without 
intermission. 

The construction, workmanship and finish of the Silsby engine are 
unequaled, and it is now almost universally conceded to be the best 
apparatus in use for the purpose for which it is intended, namely, the 
extinguishment of fires. 


























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